Replace Laptop Hard Drive & Install Windows [VIDEO]

This tutorial walks you through how to Replace Laptop Hard Drive & Install Windows. Then we show yo how to quickly install all the best free Windows apps with just a few clicks, saving you time on your Windows install. Keep reading to see how. Or if you’d rather watch the short 2-Part video tutorial, here is Replace Laptop Hard Drive & Install Windows Part 1, Part 2, and a bonus Part 3.

Replace Laptop Hard Drive

Use a Philips screwdriver to remove the hard drive plate from the back of your laptop.

Remove the old hard drive

Put the new hard drive in place of the old hard drive, making sure to connect the connector at the end of the new hard drive to the connector of the laptop. This is known as a SATA connector.

Re-attach the hard drive plate with the Philips screwdriver

Insert a USB thumb drive into a (different) working PC that’s connected to the Internet

Find and then download a Windows ISO file (Google this) using the working PC

In Step 1 of the Universal USB Installer screen, select the version of Windows you downloaded (Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 10)

For Step 2, locate the downloaded Windows ISO file on your working PC by browsing to the file and then selecting it as you would select any file in Windows

At Step 3, select your USB thumb drive from the drop down list.

Click “Create” to start the process to transform your plain old USB thumb drive into a bootable USB thumb drive that will install Windows on your laptop

Wait for the process to finish completely. When it says “Process complete”, safely remove the USB thumb drive from the working PC.

Put the USB thumb drive into the laptop on which you just replaced the hard drive

Make sure the power cord is plugged into the laptop and power the laptop on

If your laptop then displays a menu on the screen, hit Enter to begin the Windows Installer.

Follow the on-screen prompts to complete the Windows installation. If the installer asks whether you’d like to do an Upgrade or a Custom install, choose Custom install. Then select the one and only hard drive partition from the on-screen list. Then click Install, OK, Proceed, or Next.